The BRAVE OT Podcast | Real Conversations with Occupational Therapy Trailblazers

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy in OT Practice through Jen's Personal and Professional Experience
What happens when an occupational therapist who supports others with mental health challenges experiences their own mental health crisis? In this episode, Jen Anderson-Frost shares their journey through perinatal OCD and how Acceptance and Commitment Therapy transformed both their recovery and their practice.
If you're an occupational therapist curious about ACT, working with clients experiencing intrusive thoughts, or supporting parents with perinatal mental health challenges, this conversation offers practical insights alongside vulnerable, lived experience. Jen talks openly about the difference between traditional CBT approaches and ACT, why understanding that ego-dystonic thoughts are part of OCD mattered, and how creating space for difficult experiences, rather than fighting them, opens up new possibilities for recovery.
This episode is particularly valuable for OTs interested in trauma-informed, neurodivergent-affirming approaches to mental health support.
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IN THIS EPISODE, WE DISCUSS:
- What perinatal OCD looks like and why it's often misunderstood
- The concept of ego-dystonic thoughts and why this reframe matters
- How traditional CBT exposure therapy can be traumatizing without nervous system consideration
- The difference between CBT thought-challenging and ACT's approach to difficult thoughts
- Why Acceptance and Commitment Therapy was more effective in Jen's recovery
- How ACT fits naturally into occupational therapy practice across all settings
- Using ACT with clients who appear "stuck" or "non-compliant"
- Inference-based CBT (ICBT) as a neurodivergent-affirming approach to OCD treatment
- Why professionals often hold themselves to impossible standards during their own struggles
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ABOUT JEN ANDERSON-FROST
Jen Anderson-Frost (she/they) is an occupational therapist and intuitive living coach based in the UK. Drawing on both professional training and lived experience as a queer, neurodivergent parent and perinatal OCD survivor, Jen supports queer and neurodivergent parents with perinatal mental health challenges and burnout. Jen also works as a pediatric OT supporting neurodivergent children and families, and hosts the Intuitive Living with OT Intuition Podcast focused on perinatal mental health.
Connect with Jen: LINK TO LINKTREE  
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RESOURCES MENTIONED
Books:
- Overcoming Unwanted Intrusive Thoughts by Sally Winston and Martin Seif
- Break Free From OCD by Dr. Fiona Challacombe
Podcasts:
- Your Anxiety Toolkit with Kimberly Quinlan
- OCD Stories podcast
Additional Resources:
- Inference-based CBT (ICBT) for OCD treatment
- Research on intrusive thoughts in university students
- OCD Action (UK support organization)
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LEARN MORE ABOUT PRACTICAL ACT FOR OTS COURSE
Registration is open NOW for the February 2026 cohort!
The Practical ACT for OTs course gives occupational therapists practical tools and confidence to integrate Acceptance and Commitment Therapy into practice, regardless of your setting or specialty.
What you get:
- 4.5 hours of recorded learning modules (lifetime access)
- Comprehensive resource library with handouts, worksheets, and references
- 4 months of support including live Q&A calls
- Online community forum for ongoing discussion
- No certification required—ACT is designed to be accessible
Enroll now: https://www.balanceworks.online/act-for-ots
Registration closes soon for the February 1, 2026 start date.
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ABOUT THE BRAVE OT PODCAST
The BRAVE OT Podcast features occupational therapists doing innovative work and navigating the challenges of building sustainable, meaningful practices. Host Carlyn Neek, BA, BScOT, provides coaching, mentorship, and community support for OT practice owners and clinicians who want to thrive without the hustle.
Connect with Carlyn:
- Website: https://www.balanceworks.online/contact-links
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ACT for Occupational Therapists: Using Acceptance and Commitment Therapy in Any OT Setting
Have you ever worked with clients who seem stuck? The ones who don't follow through on goals they set themselves, the ones often labeled with judgy terms like "non-compliant" or "unmotivated"? As occupational therapists, we're often called in when all else has failed. But when psychosocial barriers keep people from engaging in meaningful occupations, we need tools that work with the internal experiences creating those obstacles.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) offers occupational therapists a powerful, trauma-informed framework for helping clients unhook from difficult thoughts, feelings, and sensations so they can move toward the occupations that matter to them. Whether you practice in physical rehab, pediatrics, mental health, persistent pain, or community settings, ACT can integrate into your OT approach.
In This Episode, I Discuss:
- The experience of clients being "hooked" and moving away from meaningful occupations despite having goals they care about
- The ACT choice point model: toward moves versus away moves and what that means for occupational engagement
- How the six core processes of ACT break down into mindfulness-based tools and values-based action (aka meaningful occupation)
- The four ACT processes that help clients be more flexibly responsive to difficult internal experiences
- Why ACT feels aligned with trauma-informed, humanistic, collaborative approaches to occupational therapy practice
- How "open up, be present, do what matters" translates to occupational therapy 
- Practical ways ACT fits into OT sessions across different practice settings
About My Practical ACT for OTs Course
The Practical ACT for OTs Course is clinical education designed specifically for occupational therapists who want to integrate Acceptance and Commitment Therapy into their practice. It is a psychosocial skill for any area of practice.
The course includes:
Eight asynchronous video modules (approximately 4.5 hours of content with limitless access)
Optional live group calls twice a month to discuss clinical applications and nuance
Online community of OT peers learning and applying ACT
Resource library with tools you can use immediately in practice
Support for applying ACT across all OT settings 
More than 150 occupational therapists have taken this course, and it's designed to help you add ACT tools to your clinical toolkit without feeling overwhelmed.
Learn more and register today for our February 1, 2026 cohort: www.balanceworks.online/act-for-ots
If you're listening at a later time, please check the website to see if we're actively accepting registrations for an upcoming cohort.
Connect With Carlyn
All my links
About The BRAVE OT Podcast
The BRAVE OT Podcast features occupational therapists doing innovative work and navigating the challenges of building meaningful careers in OT. Host Carlyn Neek is an occupational therapist, educator, and coach who works with OTs through clinical education, business coaching, and community support.

Deinstitutionalizing OT: Field Research, Folk Wisdom & Creating Your Own Path with Dr. Josie Jarvis
What does it mean to deinstitutionalize yourself as an occupational therapist? In this wide-ranging conversation, Dr. Josie Jarvis and I explore everything from the historical roots of healthcare systems to why OTs need to reclaim field research and folk wisdom. If you've ever felt stuck in traditional practice settings or wondered how to apply occupational science to your own life, this episode offers both validation and a path forward. We discuss burnout recovery for occupational therapists, the power of community-based folk arts, and why being brave sometimes means daring to ask the "dumb" question. This conversation is for OTs who are ready to experiment, create their own paths, and remember that innovation doesn't require permission.
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IN THIS EPISODE, WE DISCUSS:
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- Why deinstitutionalization matters for practitioners, not just clients
- How occupational science can help OTs recover from moral injury and burnout
- The historical context of healthcare systems and women's contributions through folk wisdom
- Understanding twice-exceptionality (gifted + learning differences) and how it shows up in OT practice
- Why field research and observation are more valuable than we've been taught
- The problems with the traditional evidence-based practice pyramid and the Tomlin & Borgetto alternative
- How grades and academic metrics aren't real and why that matters
- Building community through folk arts and crafts as a vehicle for policy change
- The Being, Becoming, Belonging quilt project and its impact on systemic change
- What it means to be brave: daring to be vulnerable, asking questions, and showing up in your fullness
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ABOUT DR. JOSIE JARVIS
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Dr. Josie Jarvis is a twice-exceptional (ADHD/NVLD/Gifted) occupational therapist, critical implementation scientist, and host of the Evolved Living Podcast. She brings over a decade of clinical experience across home health, acute care, memory care, pediatrics, and K–12 education together with her neurodivergent lived experience to explore how systems shape human occupation, creativity, and identity.
After collaborating with Carlyn Neek in the ACTivate Vitality program, Josie deepened her commitment to reviving a contemporary folk arts/crafts and critical implementation science movement that supports collective occupational wellbeing and recovery from systemic harm across borders and practice settings. Her work blends OT/OS scholarship, accessible education, and creative praxis to help practitioners and communities reclaim meaningful occupation and systemic integrity.
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RESOURCES MENTIONED
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Josie's OT and OS Work can all be found at https://engage.evolvedlivingnetwork.com/ Including:
- OT/OS Substack & Evolved Living Podcast: https://josiejarvisot.substack.com
- Professional Website: https://josiejarvis.com
- OS 101 Course – Foundations of Occupational Science for U.S.-Based OT Practitioners 
- OS 101 Guide
Josie's Creative & Intuitive Work can be found at https://josephinepatricia.substack.com including:
- Josephine Patricia Creative Substack
- Various products and courses related to rewilding, arts, circles and more
Books & Resources:
- Witches, Midwives & Nurses Book Club
- Article on Witches, Midwives & Nurses 
- Beyond the Hierarchy (Tomlin & Borgetto Research Pyramid)
Previous Episodes of the BRAVE OT Podcast Referenced:
- Episode 13: With references to Dąbrowski's Theory of Positive Disintegration  
- Episode 43: Overcoming Entrepreneurial Perfectionism with the Scientific Method 
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WORK WITH CARLYN
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If today's conversation about deinstitutionalizing yourself and finding hope beyond burnout resonated with you, the ACTivate Vitality Program offers a community of OT practice owners who are navigating these same challenges.
We focus on building sustainable, values-aligned practices through group coaching, ACT-based frameworks, and genuine support not hustle culture.
Book a Clarity Call
Learn more about ACTivate Vitality

Ever feel like you're drowning in documentation while the work you actually trained for gets squeezed into the margins? Or maybe you're curious about AI tools but worried about privacy, security, and whether using them is even ethical? You're not alone and this conversation might be exactly what you need to hear.
In this episode, I sit down with Raj Paul, Director of Engineering at Jane, where he leads the teams building clinical features designed to reduce administrative burden. Raj brings a unique perspective he's not an OT, but his wife is, so he deeply understands our world. He's also openly multipassionate, generating many ideas and he shares about how he uses AI to challenge and refine his thinking and communicate more effectively.
We're having the real conversation about AI documentation tools that so many OTs are craving. Raj walks us through exactly how AI Scribe keeps your data private, how to get proper consent from clients, and why you don't need to be afraid of this technology.
But here's what really hit me: We talk about this pervasive belief that for work to be valuable, it needs to be hard. I share about the experience of OT entrepreneur coaching clients who had a turning point when she started using AI for documentation. She realized she'd been using her leftover energy for her family instead of finding ways to work less hard. That shift cascaded into her riding bikes more, making art, volunteering with her kids' sports teams, and actually living her life. Work doesn't have to be hard to be valuable.
In this episode, we cover:
How AI Scribe actually works and what makes it secure (BAAs, human-in-the-loop design, AWS partnership)
Why Jane's team can't access your transcripts or notes - and how they improve the tool without seeing your data
Getting informed consent from clients (regulatory considerations, intake forms, and having the conversation)
How to start experimenting with AI safely before using it clinically
The "AI as intern" analogy - why you still need to check its work
Privacy concerns, environmental considerations, and making values-aligned decisions
Why Raj uses Claude personally to challenge his ideas and improve his communication
The importance of psychological safety in creating better ideas and better outcomes
Practical tips: Start with free tools, check your privacy settings, get comfortable before jumping in
This episode is for you if:
You're curious about AI documentation but need the safety and privacy facts first
You're burned out from documentation and wondering if there's a better way
You've been seeing AI conversations in Facebook groups and need real information to decide
You're ready to challenge the belief that struggle equals value
You want to reclaim your time and energy for what actually matters
 
Ready to try it yourself? Use the code VITALITY or follow this link to get a one-month grace period on a new Jane account, which includes free access to 5 AI Scribe sessions per month. I haven't had a list of chart notes waiting for me in a really long time. They're done in minutes, and it's genuinely changed my practice.
My Article: How I Customized My Jane AI Scribe Template to Make it More OT
Jane's Article: AI Scribe: How To Talk to Clients & Get Consent
Connect with Raj Paul: LinkedIn

Ever wonder what happened to some of our OT entrepreneur trail blazers who went quiet?
If you've been around OT social media or podcasts, you probably know Trish Williams from her brand, OTs Get Paid. In this raw, honest conversation, Trish opens up about why you haven't heard from her in more than a year and it's not the story you might expect.
This episode is about what happens when your capacity fundamentally shifts. When perimenopause rewires your brain. When family crisis demands everything you have. When the version of yourself you've been living and sharing doesn't fit anymore. And when slowing down becomes the bravest thing you've ever done.
In this conversation, we explore:
The collision of perimenopause and family crisis that changed everything
Why Trish went back to being a mobile OT after thinking she'd "graduated" from that
How cognitive changes in perimenopause can feel like late-onset ADHD
The shame that comes with not being able to keep up anymore (and the rotting cooler story)
What it really means to slow down when your whole identity was about achieving
Redefining "brave", from launching businesses to getting reports done on time
The shift from hope to faith when life gets really hard
Building boundaries, finding what lights you up, and detaching with love
Why volunteering at Pride and Folk Fest became her community lifeline
The daily practices that keep her grounded (and why "scary thing" became "brave thing")
This episode is for you if:
You're noticing your capacity has shifted and you don't know what to do about it
You're in perimenopause or menopause and feeling completely disoriented
You're navigating a major life crisis while trying to keep your business/career going
You're tired of maintaining an image that doesn't fit who you are anymore
You need permission to slow down without giving up
You're a single parent or primary caregiver feeling stretched beyond your limits, even while parenting adult children
You want to hear what building a life that actually works for you looks like
Connect with Trish: Email: [email protected] and listen to the OTs Get Paid Podcast. 
Join the conversation in The BRAVE OT Facebook group - come share what "brave" looks like for you in your current season.
  Questions OTs are searching:
What are perimenopause symptoms affecting my work?
How do I manage my OT practice with changing capacity?
Is it normal to feel burnt out as an occupational therapist?
Can I go back to clinical work after business coaching?
How do I pivot my OT career in midlife?
What does mobile OT work look like?
How do therapists handle family crisis while working?
Is perimenopause affecting my ADHD symptoms?
How do I slow down my OT practice without quitting?
What are signs of therapist burnout?
How do I rebuild my OT career after time away?